Day 6 - Rhodes

We had a very knowledgable tour guide for this mornings' tour of Rhodes. We started out riding a trolley and then set out on foot through the walled Old City.  Our guide recapped then entire history of this island back to it's founding around 400 BC.  

One of the key times was after the Crusades, when the Knights of St John, who occupied it for about 400 years, built the wall around the city that you see in these pictures. This is the main street of the old town and is called the Street of Knights.  I've also included a photo of one of the many churches.  Our guide said that the apostle Paul brought the Gospel to the island around 57 AD and the island remains 97% Christian to this day.

After our tour we stayed in the city and had a Greek lunch of pita bread and local dips, along with moussaka.

We capped off the evening with the production show Cinematastic, a montage of famous show tunes. We knew all the songs, and being a small theater you can make eye contact with the dancers, which makes it even more fun. 

Day 5 - Santorini

We had a very enjoyable day at Santorini, taking a bus ride around the island, wine tasting, and then a cable car down to tender out to the ship.

This island has over 400 churches and chapels, with this one being typical.  Many are built by one family as a private chapel.  What was even more curious are the miniature chapels.  Some are "doll house" sized while others are maybe 18" tall and sit on fences in back yards. The large number of these miniatures was quite amazing.

At an excursion stop on a "black beach" (which was more like gravel than sand) Mary and I posed on these rocks while enjoying the sun and warmer temperatures - up in the 60's while our previous stops barely made it into the 50's.  We also had a stop at a local winery where we enjoyed tasting not only their wines but cherry tomatoes, which amazingly grow quite well on this arid island, bread and cheese. 

After we returned to the ship we headed for the buffet which has seating on the open deck at the back of the ship.  What a way to enjoy lunch, with this marvelous view!  Too bad we can't have the captain just keep us anchored here for a few days...

Nothing much planned for this evening, then on to Rhodes tomorrow!

Day 4 - At Sea

Today we are at sea on the southern edge of last night's storm which cleared up later in the afternoon, but in the meantime the ship had a lot of movement.  We continue to enjoy the relative spaciousness of our cabin. 

There are quite a few activities going on today. This morning, Mary went to an ice carving demonstration; it's hard to tell from the photo but the original block of ice ended up being a bird. I went to a port talk on Mykonos and Rhodes, after which I got a call to be a 4th at bridge, which I accepted. In the afternoon Mary went to a jewelry show while I played more bridge.  

This afternoon we looked out our balcony window at the stormy weather and discovered a double rainbow.  We were able to see the entire arc of the inner one for a few minutes, truly breathtaking!

Tonight after dinner we attended the Motor City production show, one we've seen 3 or 4 times on other cruises but love it every time.  The dancers were very energetic and did a super job. 

Day 3 - Montenegro

Check out the map on the right. Kotor is located on the lower corner of the inner-most bay on the right. We sailed into Kotor, Montenegro this morning in a thick fog that started when we passed from the central bay to the city. I can only image the careful navigation going on in the Bridge as they eased the ship through a 1000' wide gap between the mountains with zero visibility!    As we approached the city the fog started to lift and we ended up with a beautiful day.

This city is absolutely amazing!  Our cruise director said "the first time I arrived in Kotor I opened the curtains and thought I was in Narnia"!  And that is quite true -- the mountains impressively rise up several thousand feet right from the sea.   This is the picture of the city from our balcony, with the old city walls.

Our excursion today took us to the tiny village of Lastva.  We took a bus from the pier, but had to change to small vans to get to our destination. The village only has 2 residents now, down from several hundred a few decades ago, as people moved down to the coast where the jobs and schools were. There is a beautiful Roman Catholic church here (built in 1410), and many people make the trip to it frequently to worship.  We were then treated to some local foods and entertainment.  We enjoyed wine, cheese, prosciutto, olives and bread, while listening to two guitarists play their folk music.  We were especially pleased that they included their own version of Country Roads ("Take Me Home ... to Montenegro")

After the village we headed back to Kotor for a tour of the Old City. As with other cities in this area, it has a long history with many ancient buildings and evidence of domination by the Venetians.  One thing that surprised us is the number of palm trees in this part of the world. So rather than post a picture of another old building, here is one of our ship docked at Kotor. 

This evening we enjoyed watching the ship depart Kotor and navigating the narrow route out to the Adriatic Sea.  Due to a storm rolling in from Italy, we left earlier than our scheduled departure time and are experiencing very rough weather so that we cannot go onto our balcony at all this evening.  The captain said we should outrun this storm by morning and have a fairly calm sea day tomorrow as we head towards Santorini.  

Day 2 - Split Croatia

We had an early morning half day excursion today to visit Trogir and the Diocletian's Palace in Split. Overall it was interesting and we had a very knowledgable tour guide, but at some point "too much information" syndrome kicked in.  So while it was an informative day, "TMI syndrome" made for a long day.,

Trogir is a small, quaint village with some ancient ruins, mostly from when the Venetians occupied this area.  After our tour we had some free time so we enjoyed a treat from a local bakery while enjoying the scenery.  

In Split, the Palace was very impressive.  Seeing Roman ruins that are over 1700 years old and still standing was quite amazing.  Nearly everything is made out of limestone and the blocks in the palace fit together so well that no mortar was needed. Here's a picture of the palace and tower taken from our ship.

After our excursion we headed back to the ship, had lunch, and then relaxed in our cabin for the afternoon.  The voyage out of the Split Harbor was as impressive as we'd heard.  After that, we went to dinner which included a "Chocolate Journeys" dessert (a new Princess feature).

Day 1 - Departing Venice

After a good night's sleep we had a very relaxing morning with a nice hotel-provided hot breakfast followed by a private gondola ride through the canals of Venice, including a short stint on the Grand Canal.  At one point we passed near a square we walked on yesterday which was neat to see. 

After checking out of our hotel we picked up CNN on the lobby TV, and watched coverage of  Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election. At noon our water taxi arrived to take us to our ship. The picture is view out the back of our boat of a canal we passed through after leaving out hotel.

This is our first time in a mini suite and we are both amazed at how roomy it is!  (I fear someone may get a bit spoiled..) Our suitcases were delivered when we came back from lunch and we are able to unpack and still have empty drawers and shelves.

This evening we watched as the ship sailed out of Venice at dusk, passing St. Mark's Square.  Then we had dinner and went to the Welcome Aboard show in the theater.   On to our first stop in Croatia tomorrow!

Heading to the Adriatic Sea

Yesterday our "too good to pass up" vacation started with flights from Detroit to JFK and then overnight to Venice. As flights go, it was a long travel day but it got us here OK and on time. We were able to sleep a little on the plane but not as much as we'd hoped (or liked) to. We did get to see the Alps from the air as we approached Italy.

After arriving in the city via water taxi, we settled into our hotel room,  enjoying many gondolas passing by our window.  Then we headed for the Rialto Bridge which spans the Grand Canal, and had a pizza lunch.  Walking around Venice is a challenge as no street apparently goes straight for more than a few hundred yards, and many a lot less that that. But thanks to walking directions on Google Maps, we arrived at the Rialto Bridge (but not without a few missteps) and got back to our hotel afterwards.

Our next stop was St Mark's Square and the famous St Mark's Basilica which we toured.  Admission was freewill, and the place was beautiful, but no photography was allowed inside.
After that we headed back to our hotel and the lack of sleep caught up with us so we napped for a couple of hours then had a wonderful Italian dinner on St Mark's Square.

Tomorrow we're planning to take a gondola ride then wait for a boat to pick us up and take us to the Pacific Princess!